'Asking for It', Revolutionary Style

On March 9, 2011, after Mubarak had resigned and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had taken over, Tahrir Square, still occupied by activists, was raided by the military. Many were arrested, detained, and some were beaten and tortured.

Among them were 17 women. After their release they claimed they had also been subjected to 'virginity tests'. They were threatened with prostitution charges if they 'failed'. SCAF said it would investigate the claims.

We know how that usually goes.

Today CNN is breaking a story on a SCAF officer who confirms the allegations but with a bizarre justification (bold mine).

A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

Here is the Amnesty International report, which demands justice for the abused.

“This admission is an utterly perverse justification of a degrading form of abuse,” said Amnesty International. “The women were subjected to nothing less than torture.”

Okey-dokey then. Shorter SCAF: 'To make sure you don't accuse us of rape, we'll rape you. And besides, you're all sluts anyway.'

Follow developments and reactions on Twitter: #virginitygate and #virginitytests.

Here's some of what people are saying.

Maddinya: "Women who fight power are asking to be raped." - SCAF #Egypt #genderME #jan25 #PIGS #virginitygate

Mona Eltahawy: When the "State" sexually violates women, it gives green light for all to violate. #virginitygate #Egypt

Oh. Look. SCAF dismisses the report.

(DJ!'s previous post on how the Arab Spring is treating women.)

The Revolution Will Not Be Gender-Specific

When the Arab Spring began, I started following on Twitter several reporters and journalists -- many of them Arabs of various nations -- covering the news.

I've continued following most of them, including the wonderful Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy. She retweets a lot and today she is retweeting a series from Leil-Zahra Mortada, who witnessed an outrageous act of, sadly, not at all unusual sexual street harassment of women in Egypt. Here's the story from another source.

The outrage stems from the occasion and the victim's identity. She is iconic actress Sherihan, who has been a part of the uprising all along. (Photos here if you're curious.)

The occasion was another demonstration in Tahrir Square yesterday. Islamists had said they would not participate, so people were anticipating a secular, progressive event.

Ha.

If you haven't been following events in Egypt, you might think things are all rosy there. They're not. The army has turned out to be not such great fans of revolution. People are being arrested and detained for demonstrating and speaking up. 'Thugs' beat and harass people.

Progressives and the young people who started all this are pissed. Women in particular are pissed.

Hence, further demonstrations. Which the authorities are obviously trying to quell.

The assault did not happen in Tahrir Square but after Sherihan left. Leil-Zahra:

@monaeltahawy Plz spread, most Egyptian media is trying to taint Tahrir saying all happened in the square during the protest.

Tweeps are saying it was not the 'usual' sexual street harassment. Sherihan says she doesn't know who the men were, but calls them 'thugs'.

When Lara Logan was assaulted, the western media was alllll over it. And, of course, the usual nutbars got all shrieeky with their knee-jerk Muslim bashing and simultaneous 'Where are the feminists?' schtick. With the added frisson of victim-blaming, as in 'Well, what did a good looking blonde broad expect?'

I just searched for 'Sherihan' at Google News. This is what I got: *crickets*. (BTW, Sherihan is a pretty stunning looking brunette, i.e. media fodder.)

So, I'm a feminist and I'm here and I'm pissed. This reminds me of my young feminist/anti-war activist self. Just as now in Egypt and elsewhere, women were being told: 'Let's just get this war stopped/democracy going and then we'll get to your [teensy] concerns.'

Egyptian women are being targetted and used. They bloody well know it and are not going to stand for it. Here's Eltahawy again in a recent interview with Amy Goodman discussing Logan's experience.

You know, myself and every Egyptian woman I know have been subjected to groping or other kinds of street sexual harassment.
. . .
And, you know, what happened when Tahrir Square was opened was, those who didn’t join the revolution came out to Tahrir Square. So this kind of utopian atmosphere we had in Tahrir Square, you know, was ruined by people who came either from the Mubarak regime supporters or others who were not part of the revolution. So, women in Egypt and their male allies recognize that the revolution must continue not just politically, but also culturally and socially, as a way of ensuring that women’s rights do not disappear just because the Mubarak regime has been toppled and that women must continue this fight, along with their male allies.

Gonna be a long fight. But I'm counting on the courage and persistence of the people of the Arab Spring to get it done.

ADDED: Info (mostly Arabic) is being pooled on this Facebook page.

Hyenas and jackals: spots & stripes remain.

Mubarak's scavengers, cowards before the millions-strong demonstrators for democracy, have slunk back.

From here:

When the Egyptian army entered the streets of Cairo at the peak of the protests in Tahrir Square in January, its members were welcomed as heroes. When they pledged not to fire on the demonstrators, people in the streets shouted, “The army and the people are one!” It has taken only a matter of weeks for that promise to come undone. [...] In meetings with half a dozen activists and demonstrators on Monday, people kept referring to “the events of Wednesday night” and “what happened at the museum.” For many who risked everything to oust a dictator and set Egypt on a democratic course, Wednesday, March 9th, has become a turning point: the moment when it became unambiguously clear that the Egyptian military was not the guardian of the revolution they hoped it would be.

Samira Ibrahim Mohamed is a 25-year-old woman from Upper Egypt. She came from her home more than eight hours away in January to join in the protests in Tahrir Square. Like many others, she has stayed in Cairo, occasionally returning to camp out in the square as a reminder of the democratic promises that the military and remnants of the old regime have made. She was in the square on the afternoon of March 9 when members of the army and men in plainclothes attacked the demonstrators, arbitrarily arresting people on sight. Samira was one of the protesters who was dragged away from Tahrir that afternoon. [...]

Samira was handcuffed to a wall in the museum complex. For nearly seven hours — almost every five minutes, she said — Samira was electrocuted with a stun gun. Her torturers would sometimes splash water on her and others to make the shocks more painful. The electrical jolts were applied to her legs, shoulders and stomach. She pleaded with the soldier to stop. Repeating what the demonstrators had chanted in Tahrir Square, she said, “I begged them. I said, ‘You are my brothers. The army and the people are one.’” Her tormentor replied, “No, the military is above the nation. And you deserve this.” [...] But the most humiliating moment was when they first brought her into the prison. She and 10 other women arrested in the square were stripped and forcibly examined to determine whether they were virgins. She had been told that any woman found not to be a virgin would have prostitution added to her charges.

When they led her into the room where she would suffer this indignity, she paused for a moment. Behind the military man waiting for her, she noticed a photograph. It was a portrait of Hosni Mubarak. She asked the soldier, “Why do you keep that up there?” He replied, “Because we like him.”

Samira was subjected to *barbaric* torture, almost identical to the abuse experienced by female political prisoners during the authoritarian dictatorships in Argentina and Chile, countries whose *barbaric* cultural traditions are informed by *barbaric* religious ideology, which in South America is evangelical christianity or fundamentalist catholicism.

Gynophobia is hatred so profoundly rooted in some men that they will justify collective - and individual, when done to female family members - terrorist practices by claiming *God* made them do it.

Pro-choice in Egypt

There's been much discussion since January 25th about the role of women in a democratically engaged Egypt. During the peaceful, millions-strong demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square and across the country, women participated next to their confrères.

Unfortunately last week, the ugly despotic face of institutionalized gynophobia appeared in the form of thugs sent to harass women demonstrating in Tahrir.

The fight to achieve human rights for all - women and men - is ongoing in Egypt, just as women as experiencing push-back in many countries around the world, including Canada.

And now that Stockwell Day is abandoning the Harper Regime, who will Faytene "Serena Joy" Kryskow use as her wing man when she flashes her *all-access-pass* on Parliament Hill to lobby politicians and advance her evangelical cause?

On a deeper optimistic note, here's a blogpost that has waited for a good time to be shared with our readers. From monasah: I was created with love.

The story of how I was conceived:

I was created with love. I was born while my dad was in prison. He was sentenced to spend 5 years in prison because he was part of a communist group opposing Mobarak and his regime.

When the verdict came, my mother was not in Egypt. Their friends managed to hide him away and bring them together before he goes to prison. Mama knew Baba will be away for years. They both wanted a baby girl and she thought that having a baby would soften the coming years with out him. So they hid away, took their time in creating me and in bidding each other farewell.

When they were certain my mother was pregnant in me, my dad went and turned himself in. [...]

Do something every day which honours women and brings each one closer to the respect of her human rights.

Mona Eltahawy at J Street

Mona Eltahawy recently spoke as a panel member at this event organized by J Street last week.

She is a journalist that I've been following on Twitter - @monaeltahawy - since #SidiBouzid and #Jan25; she is an articulate, witty and effective communicator.

J Street is a formidable presence in Washington DC, ensuring that accurate and factual information about the Middle East is available to counter the rhetoric of those who lobby in support of Israel's pro-war policies.

There's no similar organization in Ottawa, which allows MP Irwin Cotler to promulgate his perspective as though it were the official position of Liberal Party of Canada - and gives the Harper Regime more opportunities to maintain its ideologically-informed policies, with regard to Israel.

Updated to add a link to Mona Eltahawy's blogpost about FGM written last year and is particularly moving, in honour of IWD tomorrow.

Egypt, as seen by Free Dominion

In another episode of 'DJ! Visits the Freaks So You Don't Have to Get Out Your Wellies', here's how they monitored events in Egypt.

The thread was initially titled 'Egyptian Riots', later changed to 'Egypt - A Web 2.0 Revolution'. It was started by a poster named 'fourhorses' on January 28 and it's still going strong, up to 174 pages (a FD page holds only 15 posts, but still, that's a lotta posts).

'fourhorses' offered mostly straight reporting, links and complete stories (they have no use for copyright over there) from legit (as opposed to their more usual wingnut) sources, including Al Jazeera English.

Some Freaks weighed in with comments like this one from Red Dog:

muslims rioting against other muslims and burning up a muslim country is a problem because.....?

Others voiced fears for Israel and of Islamic radicals, while displaying MASSIVE ignorance of any actual facts.

Another, named Kate Shaw who has an Israeli flag in her sig, actually said this:

Its the End Times -- and more and more of this is going to be happening everywhere; and especially here in Canada where we have allowed Enclaves to balkanize our country to the point that we have plenty of dry tinder awaiting a match.

Say your prayers and watch for the USA to close the major bridges when the fire starts.

A few very -- two, maybe -- demonstrated optimism, and, funnily, they seemed to be in command of a few of the issues.

My Facebook friend Connie snarked about what happens when you shut off the Internet.

But mostly it was 'fourhorses'. He or she was obsessed. (Ahem.) When things really heated up, she/he started posting tweets from knowledgeable people in the streets there, many of them the same people I was following. (Hmm.)

The others mostly left off with the stupid remarks and let him or her go to it.

It is a rare and commendable example of the Freaks being interested in foreign events. I hope a lot of them followed along and learned something.

Ça grouille

Alison of the blogs Creekside, The Galloping Beaver and Dawg's Blawg observed how perfectly apt and appropriate were the US president's and Canada's PM respective response to events in Egypt. "It's perfect, really. Obama quoted MLK; Harper quoted HR Haldeman." She elaborates:

"Haldeman used the same 'not going to get the toothpaste back in the tube' analogy at the Watergate hearings to explain why they didn't get away with the Watergate break in. I just thought it fitting that while Obama quoted MLK, Steve chose a phrase made famous by a Watergate felon."

If you search grouiller, "Ça grouille" on French google you'll discover many meanings, including one connected to Isabella Rossellini's Green P0rn short performance pieces. I'm posting this one as an amusing foreplay to Valentine's Day.



Can you hear The Fetus©™ fetishists, *The Pill Kills* anti-contraception RightWingNutJobs, assorted religious fundamentalist zealots and John "Sperm Holocaust" Pacheco shrieeeking?

Good.

'I am not a hero'

It's day 12 of the Egyptian Revolution and for many it seemed like the momentum was waning. Mubarak's waiting game appeared to be working. 'Stalement' was the word in many pundits' mouths. Pundits were decrying the lack of a leader or a 'face'.

Then, Wael Ghonim got released from 12 days of military police custody.

Ghonim is 30 years old, father of two, and head of Google's Middle East operations.

And now we know what Egyptian intelligence knew. He is the admin of the Facebook page that is credited with helping to organize the uprising, 'We are all Khaled Said', referring to the young man tortured to death in Alexandria.

Inscrutably -- in light of developments -- he was allowed to be interviewed on a private TV station, DreamTV. Here are some clips and transcripts in English.

At the time though, I was following Sultan Al Qassemi who was live-tweeting the interview and translating. He kept saying 'this is so emotional'.

And indeed it was. Ghonim was very upset by the regime's contentions that he was a traitor and that the revolt was lead by outsiders.

I am not a hero. I only used the keyboard, the real heroes are the ones on the ground. Those I can't name. This is the season where people use the word traitor against each other. I wasn't abused, I was jailed, kidnapped. I met some really intellectual people in jail, they actually thought that we were traitors, working for others.

If I was a traitor I would have stayed by the swimming pool in my house in the UAE.

He was blindfolded for 12 days and knew nothing of what was going on in the streets of Egypt.

When the heartless/sensationalist interviewer showed him pictures of people who had been killed, he broke down and cried.

So did I and gordknowshowmany others watching or reading.

The reaction was swift. People began posting on Twitter: 'My name is XXXX and Wael Ghonim represents me'.

A Facebook page (all in Arabic, I'm taking this on faith) to that effect went from 14,000 'likes' a few hours ago to 67,000 last I looked.

The Revolution has been re-energized.

And here is how newcomers -- many many many more now -- are welcomed to Tahrir Square. The chant is 'the Egyptians are here, here, here'.



ADDED: The interview with English subtitles.

Tough Love

Kate Heartfield, a member of the editorial board of the Ottawa Citizen, shares with her readers the text of a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Information about the treatment of foreign journalists. She is correct; it makes sense, in the use of a particular form of logic and obfuscation well exploited by tyrants to justify any rampant abuse of human rights.

When you read the document, if you pause and close your eyes for a moment, you can almost hear a chortle of amusement and bonhommie emanating from the despots who directed their subalterns to craft and distribute it.

Statements issued by a number of international sources alleging an official policy against internatinal [sic] media are false. Acts of violence against journalists, or any person are unacceptable. In instances were international media have been detained for questioning by the authorities, the Ministry of Information, represented by the State Information Service, has worked closely and successfully with authorities to expedite the process of their release. [...]

Regrettably, international journalists have been endangered by the same conditions that have threatened all Egyptians in areas of the country where there have been major disturbances and a breakdown of security. All these matters are the subject of comprehensive and in depth investigation as ordered by the President, and monitored by the Vice-President and the Prime Minister.

By all means, do read the editorial written in response to the forcible detention of, and violent attacks upon, journalists in Egypt as well as to to the paternalistic verbiage produced by Egyptian officials toiling for the Ministry of DisInformation.

Egypt will rise

@Zeinobia, an Egyptian blogger that I follow on Twitter put this up at her site. It is a classic and powerful graphic - inspiring and resonating.

Egypt, We Support You

Moving video by Tamer Shaaban.

Dicktators Say The Funniest Things...

Silvio Berlusconi offers his support: "...President Mubarak is considered a wise man by the US and other occidental countries, and a specific point of reference for the Middle East..."

Damning with faint praise, Silvio?

You'd think that Berlusconi would leave poor Mubarak alone, given the little incident back in October.

A scandal over Silvio Berlusconi's relationship with a teenage Moroccan girl took on legal and political overtones today when a senior police officer confirmed that the Italian prime minister's office had intervened on her behalf when she was detained on suspicion of theft, claiming she was the granddaughter of the Egyptian president.

That would appear to leave Berlusconi open to claims that he abused his position – a criminal offence under Italian law.

How can Mubarak possibly reciprocate? Mmm ... he might suggest that the Catholic Church needs a leader like Silvio, and should change their electoral rules to allow him to become Pope Maledict when the current titleholder shuffles off to hell. That sounds fitting.

Grand merci to lagatta who provided source material for this post.

Centre of the media universe or

... political black hole? You decide.

[...]Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank's [made a] widely circulated pledge not to write anything about her for the whole of February.

Milbank wrote that, since Palin did not hold political office and had become "more like Ann Coulter," he would try to ease his "obsession" with writing about her, or mentioning her in any media appearance, for a month.

Speaking at a meeting of the Safari Club, a hunting organization, Palin apparently said that was fine with her. The boycott, she said, "sounds good, because there's a lot of chaos in Cairo, and I can't wait to not get blamed for it--at least for a month."

Palin became a focal point during the discussions on rhetoric and civility in the wake of the Arizona shooting; people accused her of having soured the national discourse through her use of phrases such as "don't retreat, reload!"

From here.

Hey Sarah, has anyone in your family or entourage of sycophants ever told that it's not all about you?

The last word goes to comic John Fugelsang.

Awesome!

From Cairo today.

Egypt: Update

Still very confused in Egypt of course. Twitter's been blocked and cell phone networks have been cut off. Electricity in some areas cut off too to prevent recharging. (New wars, new weapons.)

Seems demonstrators are planning an all-night vigil in Tahrir Square. But there's very limited cell phone coverage. So there have been many retweets of this:

@Dima_Khatib

Those with wireless network connection near Tahrir Av. in Cairo are being asked to remove passwords, so ppl can inform thru the NET #Jan25

No confirmed deaths. What was reported as live fire in Alexandria turned out to be rubber bullets. Also from Alexandria, reports that cops are taking their uniforms off and joining the protest and women are throwing dishes and pots and pans from their balconies.

It's all over the country: 50,000 in Cairo, 30,000 in Alexandria.

I wish I weren't on deadline. . . .

Checking in with #jan25 when I can.

ADDED: Amazing photos.

Egypt!

MASSIVE protest. Cops seem to be restraining themselves. All over Egypt.

Hashtag #Cairo is trending worldwide. I'm following #jan25.

ADDED: Guardian live-blog.

UPDATE: Al Jazeera finally starts reporting.